1. What types of literacies are encouraged in schools
What types of literacies are encouraged in schools? Literacy with an attitude
Thursday, February 8, 2018

2. Before I forget--- Weebly and literacy analysis due today
Reflection 1, which requires an interview of a “person in the profession” due on February 15
Your response to a colleague due by February 20
You should have your group’s young adult novel ordered….
For next week, bring two lesson plans to class that you feel have strong links to skills outside of the classroom, (or have the potential to have strong links outside the classroom). We will spend time in small groups analyzing them and discussing how the implications for outside of the classroom can be seen or improved upon.2 copies of each—for small group analysis

3. Agenda
Broad trajectory of our course
Literacy with an Attitude

4. To this point---
We’ve expanded our understanding of what texts and literacy in those texts means
We’ve looked at expertise and novice-ness in texts
We’ve looked at factors that influence how we engage with texts

5. Broad trajectory of our course
Grow in understanding of types of literacies
Consider how different factors play a role in how we experience literacies
See how schools communicate, encourage, and discourage literacies
Consider our own classroom practices in light of previous discussions
Consider literacy strategies to use with students given our better understanding of their perspectives

6. Broad trajectory of class assignments
To “rediscover” and analyze the process of becoming literate
To see connections and gaps between school literacies and “world” literacies
To consider different types of literacies to employ in our classrooms
To apply specific literacy improvement approaches with our students

7. The purpose of tonight
To look at the messages that are sent by schools
To look at the skills that are encouraged and discouraged by schools
To employ these considerations in our classes, both in curricular areas as well as classroom management, among other school processes….

8. Literacy in broken schools
A. What are your impressions of the messages being sent and the skills that are encouraged and discouraged by the conditions, both before and after, of this school?
B. Does the description of this school at the beginning enforce or counter the arguments made by Finn in Literacy with an Attitude?
C. What are the implications for your future classroom practice, given this video?

9. Schools encourage and discourage a multitude of literacies through a multitude of texts…
What are messages being sent and what skills are encouraged or discouraged?

14. 1. He/she talks excessively
1. He/she talks excessively. It has been a major distraction for the other students. 2. Every time I ask him/her a question, I get very sarcastic answers. He has been reprimanded several times for this. 3. He/she is having difficulty finding social acceptance because he/she is constantly trying to be the center of attention. It appears that this is a turn-off for the other kids. 4. I have become increasingly concerned about his/her antics. While I understand that middle school is a time for personal growth and transition, I do not believe that it is a time for kids to become class clowns. 5. He/she has made very inappropriate comments about other teachers and administrators. I am not sure what is fueling this, but it is becoming an issue. 6. I love working with ________________. He/she is an exceptional team player. 7. His/her work is always neat, legible, and compete on time. Keep up the good job! 8. _______________ is so into his/her appearance that he/she spends the entire class period grooming. This is very distracting for the other children and it causes him/her to be very unproductive. 9. Cellphones are not permitted to be used in certain areas of the school. Please remind him/her of this rule as it has been reported that other teachers have had to approach him/her about this. 10. He/she always has a very sunny and positive attitude at the start of the day. It inspires me and the other kids really love having him/her in the class. 11. His/her behavior in the halls has been appalling. _________________ has demonstrated a disrespectful side recently that I have never seen in him/her before.

17. Environment A

18. Environment B

19. Implications of these texts and literacies for your classroom and school practices?

20. Literacy with an attitude….
Why did we read this book?
What are the considerations for your classroom and school practices that this book challenges?
Provocative statements?
Statements or concepts you disagree with or want to challenge/critique?

21. 3. Literacy with an attitude “silent conversation”

22. In the working-class schools, knowledge was presented as fragmented facts isolated from wider bodies of meaning and from the lives and experiences of the students.
p. 10

23. Early schools did not permit, let alone encourage, children to generate ideas or to argue about the truth of value of what others had written.
p. 28

24. Immigrant minorities perceive the mainstream to be different from themselves, not in opposition to themselves… involuntary minorities…compare themselves to mainstream whites and see themselves as worse off by comparison p

25. Mainstream educators, especially those who keep talking about education as the answer to all our minority problems, seem to believe that if education were successful, the involuntary minorities would become fully assimilated
p. 48

26. The most successful teachers are those who make few demands in return for enough cooperation to maintain the appearance of conducting school—the make believe school model.
p. 61

27. The discourse Roadville children acquire in their homes and communities is dissimilar and in serious conflict with the discourse of the progressive classroom as described in the affluent professional and executive elite schools.
p. 119

28. If powerful literacy is not the typical literacy of your discourse community, and if you are not taught powerful literacy, you’re not likely to acquire it.
p. 126

29. Do we run classrooms in such a way that working-class children will learn the attitudes and behaviors of powerful people regarding authority, conformity, isolation, and power, which in turn makes the use of explicit language sensible and necessary?
p. 127

30. In a traditional classroom, a principal, if unconscious, function of teachers is gatekeeping—prohibiting expression on the part of students until they have conformed to school standards of “correctness”.
p. 142

31. Working-class schools expend nearly all their energy on preparing students to improve their lot by individual advancement…while, in fact, the route to acquiring social rights for a vast majority of their students is collective struggle, not individual advancement
p. 175

32. We must replace the Old Paradigm of extrinsic motivation and individual border crossing with a New Paradigm of Freirean motivation and powerful literacy that will enable the majority of poor and working class children…to become better able to exercise their civil, political, and social rights.
p. 197

33. Finn, Chapter 2 (30 minutes)
A main thesis of the Finn text is that certain literacies are taught in certain skills. Putting this concept to practice, describe an example of a literacy that is either encouraged or discouraged in these particular types of schools, as described by Finn.

34. Social texts and literacies
Emotional Texts and literacies
Interpersonal texts and literacies
Academic texts and literacies
Additional texts or literacies
Executive Elite School Climate
Affluent Professional School Climate
Middle Class School Climate
Working Class School Climate

35. 5. Select one of the following areas of focus:
Learning objectives,
Class activities,
Assessments,
Classroom management rules/strategies,
School rules or procedures.

36. Create example statements from your selected area
Create example statements from your selected area. For example, if you choose “learning objectives.” You are going to write actual learning objectives that might be found in each of these schools. Likewise, if you selected “Assessments” you will write (or describe) specific assessments that you would see in these schools. You are encouraged to consider your own licensure/endorsement areas. Picture yourself in these different schools while you consider the activity. You will report back to the class after you are done.

37. Executive Elite School Affluent Professional School
Middle Class School
Working Class School

38. 6. Implications of the different types of schools
How did the previous activity make you feel?
What can be done to improve the messages that are sent in each of the schools?
What role do your curricular choices, (objectives, topics, assessments) play in this discussion?

39. For next week
Reflection 1—Interview with a professional in the field about the literacies they use and literacies they learned in school….